Hello friends and lovers. So apparently not only did Louise's parents come for dinner on Monday night, but they stayed at the apartment with us until today. It wasn't too bad, but semi-awkward and the first morning Anna and I slid out the door so we wouldn't have to speak intense French so early in the morn (Louise is usually not awake when we eat breakfast, she does what she wants). I think her father is at least 10 years older than her mother, probably 80 and 70 or maybe even a bigger gap. "Mama" is a very distant and proper Chinese woman yet has moments of warmth where she seems like a real grandma. "Papa" is very sweet and tries to make conversation with the two of us. He is also much like Ozzy Osbourne (these days, not biting heads off of bats) in the way that he moves. The mother is Thai and father is Chinese, they met in China but moved to the tiny French island "La Reunion" in the Indian Ocean. That's where Louise grew up, then she moved to France when she was about 13. They speak French but with very Chinese accents and also Chinese when it's just the 3 of them.
The first dinner wasn't too bad, not too much conversation besides "Papa" spitting out random U.S. state names and us replying with "yes," as if he was testing his knowledge (maybe he was). We had fois gras (of course I hated it and can't even talk about it), salad, bread, wine, salmon, and an apricot tart. I'm not usually one for fruit tarts, but it was delicious. Last night was a little more eventful. As Louise and her mother finished preparing dinner, her father very proudly showed us the Chinese newspaper that he picked up in the Chinatown-ish area of Paris. He kind of did a "repeat after me" and was reading/explaining to us the meaning and sounds of the characters. It was very cute how he was excited about teaching us (he also taught us how to count, but I of course couldn't pay attention), and Louise would come in every so often and roll her eyes. I thought about the situation abstractly for a moment (as I always do) and realized that I was sitting in a Frasian woman's luxurious apartment in Paris at the dinner table while she prepares us a meal and her father translates Chinese into French for us and we understand because we speak French. Wow. We had steamed leeks, pork, potatoes, and some sort of melange of flat beans and carrots. When Louise went to cut the pork (the pork plate was right in front of me), I got squirted in the eye with pork juice. I yelped and she goes "oh, pardonnez-moi!" and after I got over the immediate shock of being pelted in the cornea by warm (albeit, strangly not so unpleasant) meat juice, Anna and I couldn't control our laughter and I had to sit there with my hand over my mouth not looking over at her. Everyone else had moved on by that point.
The three of them left this morning for Italy, that means that Anna and I have the place to ourselves. She left us a ton of food (including frozen flammekouches, holler) and cookies to take with us on our journey. I came down for breakfast this morning to find 2 croissants in a bag on the kitchen table for us. I love the random surprises she gets for us which make up for the awkward times.
That's all for now, I must start packing for my 2 week European adventure.
P.S. Rollerblades are an acceptable form of transportation in France. Over.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment